New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

8. Displacement of Small by Big Enterprises.
      Quantity of Improved Land

Wehave examined the major forms of the development of
      capitalism in agriculture, and have seen how extremely varied
      they are. The most important are: the break-up of the
      slave-holding latifundia in the South; the growth of large-scale
      extensive farming operations in the extensive area of the North;
      the most rapid development of capitalism in the intensive area
      of the North, where farms are, on the average, the smallest. The
      facts incontrovertibly prove that in some cases the development
      of capitalism is indicated by an increase in farm acreage and in
      others by an increase in the number of farms. In view of such a
      state of affairs we learn nothing from the returns on average
      farm acreages summarized for the country as a whole.

Whatthen is the net result of the various local and
      agricultural peculiarities? An indication is given by the data
      on hired labour. The growing employment of hired labour is a
      general process transcendingallthese
      peculiarities. But in the vast majority of civilized countries
      agricultural statistics, paying tribute, intentionally or
      otherwise, to prevailing bourgeois notions and prejudices,
      either fail to furnish any systematic information on hired
      labour at all, or give it only for the most recent period (e.g.,
      German Agricultural Census of 1907), so that it is impossibleto
      make a comparison with the past. I shall show in detail
      elsewhere that in the elaboration and tabulation of the returns
      of hired labour American statistics changed markedly for the
      worse between 1900 and 1910.

Themost common and most popular method of presenting
      statistical summaries in America and most other countries is to
      compare big and small farms by acreage. I shall now proceed to a
      consideration of these data.

Ingrouping farms by acreage, American statisticians take total
      acreage and not just the improved area, which would, of course,
      be the more correct method, and is the one employed by German
      statisticians. No reason is given why seven groups (under 20
      acres, 20 to 49, 50 to 99, 100 to 174, 175 to 499, 500 to 999,
      1,000 and over) are used to tabulate the returns of the 1910
      Census in the United States. Statistical routine must apparently
      have been of paramount consideration. I shall call the
      100-to-174-acre group—medium, because it consists mostly of
      homesteads (the official size of a homestead is 160 acres), and
      also because land holdings of this size usually give the farmer
      the greatest degree of “independence” and require the least
      employment of hired labour. The groups above that I shall call
      large or capitalistic because, as a general rule, they do not
      manage without hired labour. Farms with 1,000 acres and over I
      shall regard as latifundia—of which three-fifths is
      unimproved land in the North, nine-tenths, in the South, and
      two-thirds, in the West. Small farms are those with less than
      100 acres; how much economic independence they have is evident
      from the fact that in three groups, from the bottom up, 51%, 43%
      and 23% of the farms respectively, are recorded as having no
      horses. It goes without saying that this characteristic should
      not be taken in an absolute sense and should not he applied to
      all divisions or to localities with specific conditions without
      a special analysis.

Iam unable to give here the returns for all the seven groups in
      the main sections of the United States, for this would overload
      the text with an excessive number of figures. I shall,
      therefore, merely outline the basic distinctions between the
      North, the South and the West, and give the full returns only
      for the United States as a whole. We shouldnot lose sight of
      the fact that three-fifths (60.6%) of all the improved land, is
      in the North; less than one third (31.5%), in the South; and
      under one-twelfth (7.9%), in the West.

Themost striking distinction between the three main sections is
      that the capitalist North has thesmallestnumber of
      latifundia, although their number, their total acreage, and
      their improved acreage are on the increase. In 1910, 0.5% of the
      farms in the North were of 1,000 acres and over; these big farms
      had 6.9% of all the land and 4.1% of the improved land. The
      South had 0.7% of such farms, with 23.9% of the total acreage
      and 4.8% of the improved acreage. In the West there were 3.9% of
      such farms, owning 48.3% of the total acreage, and 32.3% of the
      improved acreage. This is a familiar picture: the slave-holding
      latifundia of the South, and the even vaster latifundia of the
      West, the latter being partly the foundation of the most
      extensive stock-raising, and partly reserve tracts of land
      occupied by “settlers” and resold or (less often) leased to real
      farmers improving the “Far West”.

Americademonstrates clearly that it would be imprudent to
      confuse the latifundia with large-scale capitalist agriculture,
      and that the latifundia are frequently survivals of
      pre-capitalist relationships—slave-owning, feudal or
      patriarchal. A break-up, a parcelling out of the latifundia, is
      taking place both in the South and in the West. In the North,
      the total farm acreage increased by 30.7 million acres, of which
      only 2.3 million is accounted for by latifundia, while 22
      million belongs to big, capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres). In
      the South, the total acreage was reduced by 7.5 million. The
      latifundiadecreasedby 31.8 million acres. On the
      small farms there was an increase of 13 million, and on the
      medium farms, 5 million acres. In the West, the total acreage
      increased by 17 million; among the latifundia there was a
      decrease of 1.2 million; on the small farms, an increase of 2
      million; medium, 5 million; large, 11 million acres.

Theimprovedacreage increased in the latifundia of all
      three sections: substantially in the North (+3.7 million acres =
      +47.0%), very slightly in the South (+0.3million = +5.5%), and
      more in the West (+2.8 million = +29.6%). But in the North, the
      maximum increase in the improved acreage-occurred on thelargefarms (175 to 999 acres); in the South, on thesmallandmedium; in the West, on thelargeandmedium. Hence, it is the large farms
      that are increasing theirshareof the improved land in
      the North, and the small and in part the medium farms, in the
      South and the West. This picture fully corresponds to what we
      already know about the different conditions in these
      sections. In the South, there is a growth ot small-scale
      commercial farming at the expense of the disintegrating
      slave-holding latifundia; the process is similar in the West,
      except that the break-up of even larger latifundia, which had
      their originnotin slave-holding but in extensive
      stock ranches and pre-empted tracts, is not as
      pronounced. Moreover, American statisticians say the following
      about the Pacific division:

“Thegreat development of small fruit and other farms on the
      Pacific coast, due, in part at least, to irrigation projects
      organized in recent years, is reflected in the increase in small
      farms of less than 50 acres in the Pacific division” (Vol. V,
      p. 264).

TheNorth has neither slave-holding nor “primitive” latifundia,
      there is no disintegration of them, no growth of the small farms
      at the expense of the large.

Theprocess for the United States as a whole appears as follows:

Thus,the number of latifundia in proportion to the total number
      of farms remains unchanged. The most characteristic change in
      the relationship between the other groups in thereduction
      in the number of medium-sizefarms and thestrengthening of
      the farms at both ends. The medium-size group (100 to 174 acres)
      and its smaller neighbor have lost ground. The smallest and the
      small farms show the greatest gains, and are followed by the
      large-scale capitalist farms (175 to 999 acres).

Letus take a look at the total acreage.

Wefind above all a very substantial reduction in the share of
      total acreage held by the latifundia. It should be borne in mind
      that an absolute reduction is taking place only in the South and
      the West, where the proportion ofunimproved land in
      the latifundia in 1910 was 91.5% and 77.1% respectively. There
      was also an insignificant decrease in the share of the top small
      group in the total acreage (—0.1% in the 50-to-99-acre size
      group). The greatest increase was shown by the large-scale
      capitalist groups, the 175-to-499-acre and the 500-to-999-acre
      groups. There was a relatively small increase in the share of
      the very small groups in the acreage. The medium group (100 to
      174 acres) was practically stagnant (+0.4%).

Letus now take a look at the improved acreage.

Thesize of thefarming enterpriseis indicated with
      some degree of approximation and allowing for certain exceptions
      to which I have referred and shall refer again below—only
      by the improved and not the total acreage. Once again we find
      that while the share of the total acreage held by the latifundia
      substantially decreased, their share of the improved acreageincreased. In general, all the capitalistic groups
      gained ground, and most of all the 500-to-999-acre group. The
      largest reduction was in the medium-size group (—1.7%),
      followed by all the small groups, with the exception of the
      smallest, the group under 20 acres, which showed a negligible
      increase (+0.1%).

Letus note in advance that the smallest-size group (under 20
      acres) includes farms of less than 3 acres, which are not
      included in American statistics unless they raise at least $250
      worth of products a year. For that reason these tiny farms (of
      less than 3 acres) have a greater volume of production and a
      more highly developed capitalist character than the next group
      up the scale. To illustrate this point here are the returns for
      1900—unfortunately the corresponding returns for 1910 are
      not available:

Eventhe 3-to-10-acre farms, to say nothing of farms with less
      than 3 acres, turn out in some respects to be “larger” (outlays
      on hired labour, value of implements and machinery) than the
      10-to-20-acre farms.[1]Consequently,there is good reason to
      attribute the increase in the share of the total improved land
      held by farms under 20 acres to an increase in the improved land
      of the pronounced capitalist-type farms of the smallest-size
      group.

Onthe whole, the returns for 1900 and l910 on the distribution
      of improved land in the U.S.A. between small and large farms
      warrant this absolutely definite and indubitable conclusion:the large farms are becoming stronger,the medium
      and the small farms,weaker. Hence,insofaras the capitalist or non-capitalist character
      of agriculture can be deduced from the data relating to farms
      grouped by acreage, the United States in the last decade shows,
      as a general rule, a growth of the large-scale, capitalist farms
      and the obliteration of small farms.

Thestatistics on the increase in the number of farms and the improved acreage in each group will confirm this conclusion:

Thelargest percentage increase in the improved acreage took
      place in the two topmost groups. The least increase occurred in
      the medium-size group and the next smaller group (50 to 99
      acres). In the two smallest groups the percentage increase in
      the improved acreage was less than the percentage increase in
      the number of farms.

[1]For1900 we have returns by size groups for the number of high
      income farms, i.e., farms with a product valued over
      $2,500. Here are these figures: among farms of less than 3
      acres, the proportion of high-income farms was 5.2%; 3 to 10
      acres—0.6%; 10 to 20 acres—0.4%; 20 to 50
      acres—0.3%; 50 to 100—0.6%; 100 to 175—1.4%; 175
      to 260—5.2%; 260 to 500—12.7%; 500 to
      1,000—24.3%; 1,000 andover—39.5%. We find the
      proportion of high-income farms in all the under-20-acre groups
      to begreaterthan in the 20-to-50-acre group.
—Lenin